We've all been there. Whether it was a science talk, meeting that you had to go to, or something else entirely, we've all seen terrible public speaking. Think about a time when you're listening to somebody talk and you really just wanted to leave. Why was cringe worthy? What made it so hard to engage? Were they talking in a monotone the entire time? Were they really verbose and telling you all this other stuff that you really don't need to know about, and they just keep talking and maybe they talk really very fast. People who talk really very fast are so overwhelming sometimes and people who could talk really fast when they're nervous and they just keep going, or maybe it was the opposite and they were talking very slowly. Was there some distracting behavior they were doing? Given all of the online communication during the COVID-19 pandemic, was it because they were looking at the sky the entire time that they were talking to you, or the floor, or the phone? Anywhere but the camera or maybe they had an annoying light source that constantly change that the video is looking like while you were talking to them making you feel a little bit of emotion sick. Maybe they had audio issues, the noise is coming up and down in and out, or maybe there was some interference or buzzing or background noise that was bothering you. These little technical details really matter when giving an effective oral presentation. So much of effective speaking comes down to acting. How can your audience feel a human connection with you? I'm in my basement talking to a camera by myself, but still trying to build that human connection with you. It's an interesting artifact of the pandemic about how usually if somebody is in a room and talking to themselves, that should be a cause for concern. Now it's something we all practice and try and get really good at. How are you modulating your voice, your facial expressions so that people feel good listening to you? This is something we talked about in the first module. What can you do to build a positive association between your audience and your content, and you are the bridge between those two things. You're helping to make that human connection with your audience so that they can connect to their content and build positive associations with it. What message do you send your audience? This also fits into that take home message again, do you want to be the mad scientists or something else? I always wear feminine clothes, so skirts and dresses and jewelry when I engage in public outreach activity. This is an intentional choice that I make, because I want to promote the idea that you can be both a scientist and feminine, and this is a message that I really want to get across to young women who are aspiring scientist. Maybe you want to appear relaxed and formal, maybe you're funny, maybe jeans and a humorous science t-shirt is appropriate for what you want to do. This all comes back again, to engaging your audience and thinking about your take home message. What's going to be appropriate for that setting? Color choice matters too, especially online. It may seem obvious but never wear green in front of a green screen. With online learning and video casting at home studios in greens screens are increasing in popularity, and if you don't want to edit yourself out when it props out, don't wear green, don't use green. Here's an outtake from another Coursera MOOC that I developed, I didn't even think about the green beads in that chain that I was using while I was teaching. They disappeared in the background, we had to reshoot the entire video. Solid colors also tend to read better than busy prints, especially online, and when you're talking online, a little bit of makeup can help your face appear less flat and a little bit more personable online. You don't have to go overboard, you don't need to be a professional makeup artists but it can help translating across the video media. Even if you are online, it's still really important to make eye contact with the camera and not the area around your computer. It makes you nervous to look at somebody especially in front of a live audience, you can look towards the back of the room or at somebody's forehead instead. The rate at which you speak is important, the tone, the inflection, it matters. If you're really excited about what you're talking about, show it, get really excited, because when you get excited, your listener gets excited too,. or maybe you're talking about something serious, or you really want to make an important point, you can slow down the speed at which you talking, you can put in pauses to emphasize what you're saying then you can match what you're trying to express. Again, that's a lot of acting to get your message across the way you want to. When we're speaking, we can do annoying things that we don't realize that we're doing, and the best way to catch this, the best way to make sure that you're coming across the way that you want to, is by watching videos of yourself speaking. I know that makes all of you will cringe," I don't want to do it," but still the best way to check and make sure that, that message is coming across the way that you want to. There's also a check to see if your lightings good, if your audio is good, and if you're coming across again the way that you want to, because if the lighting is not good, if the sound quality is not good, or if you've got a very droning voice that can undermine the best content. It's really important to consider these technical aspects, and these stylistic aspects to best support the substance in your take-home message. If you want to do podcasts, invest in a USB operator condenser microphone. This can make a huge difference in the quality of the content you can produce, if you're doing online videos, online teaching, you can get some lights that can go behind your camera so that your lighting stays even. It's also important to remember that things aren't always going to be perfect. You probably noticed over the course to these videos, and you can see me referencing my notes off-screen. I spent hours and recorded so many video trying to get my notes to be at a place next to the camera, that wouldn't look distracting, but so that I can still reference my content and make sure I was making all the points that I wanted to make. It's still not perfect, because you can still see me doing it. Although I wish it wasn't there, and although I wish there's other things about my speaking sound that I would like to change. I want to emphasize that done and done well is still better than perfect. Because if we spend too much time focusing on perfection and we never get anything done, well then we don't achieve our goal either. We don't get that take home message across if we don't do it because we're too afraid of not being perfect. Now that we've talked about how to have the best style to support our content. Let's turn to content.
